[Data on the history of the Pathology Department of the Berlin Charité Hospital. 2. Robert Friedrich Froriep, prosector at Charité, 1833-1846].

Abstract

An account is given in this publication of the activities of Robert Friedrich Froriep (1804-1861), Prosector at Charité Berlin. He headed the Prosector's Department from 1833 through 1846. Froriep had come to Berlin in 1831 with intentions to do research, primarily on cholera with which the city had been afflicted in those years. When the position of a "Provisional Prosector" of Charité became vacant, after withdrawal of Philipp Phoebus, autumn 1832, the officials of the Hospital Affairs Curatory decided to continue the provisional arrangement, and five candidates applied for the office. Froriep was accepted primarily for two reasons: He had just completed service as an extraordinary professor at the Berlin Faculty of Medicine, and he was capable of producing evidence to the double-track education desired for the job, anatomy and scientific drawing. The Prosector's office was a low-salary side job. Therefore, to ensure his own livelihood, he went into two additional occupations, teaching of anatomic drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and running of a private clinic. Froriep did extremely well in firmly establishing the Prosector's Department by enhancement of its scope and enlargement of its collection of pathologic-anatomic specimens. He failed, on the other hand, in his attempts to establish pathological anatomy as a subject in its own right at the Berlin Faculty of Medicine. That failure together with insecurity regarding the Prosector's office and position in the hierarchic system of Charité, compounded by protracted disputes between him and Johannes Müller on the Prosector's collection of specimens were causes for Froriep's aggravating frustration towards the late thirties. He also failed in trying to stabilize his scientific and financial positions by accepting directorship of a surgical department. The totality of problems in Berlin and illness of his father in Weimar prompted him to move to Weimar, in spring 1846, to take over as a manager of the Frorieps' family enterprise "Landes-Industrie-Comptoir", after the King of Prussia had bestowed upon him the title of a Privy Councillor of Medicine.